Kin freed by militants, police recount ordeal
BEIGHPORA (PULWAMA):
From the verandah of his home, at around 8 pm on Thursday, Nasir Ahmad Mir saw a group of 7-8 men talking near his home. As he climbed down to enquire and revealed his name, they caught hold of him and put a cloth over his eyes.
“They bundled me into a vehicle and pointed a barrel of gun at me. What can one do when someone pins you with a gun,” he said.
Son of a policeman, Mir was picked up by suspected militants after police had detained fathers of two Hizbul Mujahideen militants including that of outfit’s operational commander Riyaz Naikoo on Wednesday night.
For the next 30 minutes, the vehicle kept going as they took away Mir’s phone and SIM card. Then he was forced to walk a few kilometers and when the blindfold opened he found himself in the middle of a forest amid scary darkness all around.
Mir, 25, said that first he thought that he was picked up by special operations group of police but ultimately realised that was not the case.
“In the morning I saw the men carrying guns, rockets and mines. They clicked my pictures and shot a video asking me to tell the DGP that they should not harass the families of militants,” Mir said.
Like Mir, 10 other relatives of policeman abducted from various places in the four districts of south Kashmir were asked to repeat these messages on video which ultimately flooded the social media in Kashmir.
Although the abductors did little interaction with Mir and talked in “coded language” with each other but they behaved nicely with him.
“They did not harass me. Although there was no cooked food but I was presented with multiple varieties of juices and dry food and fruits,” Mir, who has done his masters in commerce, said.
THE OTHER SIDE
In his single storey house deep inside lush green Pulwama, Asadullah Naikoo spoke about multiple incidents of harassment he and his family have faced ever since his son, Riyaz Naikoo, left home to join militancy in 2012 and went on to become operational commander of Hizbul .
Pointing towards the windows and almirahs, Asadullah claimed his house had been raided and vandalised multiple times by security forces during these six years. “When the police detained me on August 29 at 11.20pm, that was the only instance among many during these years when I was not beaten up or abused and kept in a room instead of a lock-up at the local police station,” said Asadullah, a tailor by profession.